A/N: Here we have Part 2!

"You're late."

"Thanks, Miss Yelp," Ned said wearily, handing his jacket to one of the coat check attendants. "Has it started yet?"

She shook her head, her elaborately-braided purple hair brushing against her cheeks with every movement. "Your friends are here, though." She jerked her chin in their direction. As they all walked to the table, she added, "By the way, they don't have any cream puffs here. As mayor, you need to insure they have some cream puffs from now on."

"It's on my list," he replied, settling down at his seat and smiling at his friends. Patrick, Sarah, and Erik had all shown up for moral support, and the six of them (including Miss Yelp) had their own table. Sarah was glamourous as always in a dark purple dress (though she still complained about her giant nose), Patrick seemed very uncomfortable in a starched suit, and Erik looked good — which made sense, since his wife insisted on dressing him.

"Nice party, Mayor," Sarah teased. "I can't believe I'm spending my New Year's with a bunch of old people."

"We're old, Sarah," Patrick said. "It's what we do."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "I will never be old," she declared. "You're only as old as you feel! Besides, forty's the new twenty, right?"

"Let's not even think about forty yet. We still have a few years."

"You'll be there before I will."

"Kids, kids," Erik said, sticking his head between them, "if you two don't stop bickering, I'll turn this table around."

"That's a lame joke." Sarah laughed and sat back. "Anyway, there better be cream puffs," she told Ned. "Otherwise I'll never come to one of these ever again."

"You say that every year," Erik replied. He turned to Ned with a smile, giving him a hug. "How're the kids, by the way?"

"Jojo still won't talk, but the rest are doing fine. Sorry about the council job. I was pulling for you, I promise."

Erik shrugged, giving him a rueful smile. "There's a position at the Whoniversity I'm qualified for, so I'll be all right. I really just wish there was someone on that board who wasn't a Greenie. Those guys are jerks — no offense," he added, glancing at Patrick.

"Hey, I'm ashamed to share their hue."

"Good man." Erik grinned at Ned, then unbuttoned his suit jacket. "I was going to come dressed in a giant chicken suit in protest, but Sarah would've killed me, so I settled on this." He pulled back his jacket to reveal bright orange tie with yellow and white chickens dancing across it.

Ned wrinkled his nose; even with his impaired sense of fashion, he knew it was hideous. Even better, it would offend the prim sensibilities of the council. "Glad we're sitting front and center," he said, leaning closer to see that the chickens were wearing little red-and-green bow ties. "Make sure they get a good eyeful of that thing."

"Ugh, are you showing people that?" Sarah abandoned her conversation with Sally. "I tried to make him dress like a grown-up," she assured Ned, lightly smacking Erik on the arm.

"You know I'm beautiful," he shot back, puckering his lips at her like a fish. She laughed and kissed him, and they disappeared in search of cream puffs.

Sally was talking to Patrick and Miss Yelp. "Where's Melanie, Pat?" she asked.

He grimaced. "Melanie didn't work out."

Sarah groaned, having abandoned Erik at the food table and returned to their group. "He's an idiot, is what he means." When Patrick stuck his tongue at her, she said, "Well, it's true! She was a perfectly nice girl, and you dumped her for no good reason —"

"I wouldn't say that —"

"You broke up with the last one because she was too tall!" It was true; Patrick had gone through several girlfriends over the last fifteen years, and none of them had lasted for more than a year or two. Sometimes they would break up with him, but more often he would simply show up alone one day, giving a half-hearted reason as to why "it didn't work out." Patrick would rather die than admit it, but Sally and Ned both suspected that he hadn't let go of Sarah, even though that ship had sailed long ago and he had no intention of ruining his best friend's happiness.

He shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "I was tired of staring up into her nostrils."

Sarah shook her head, but a bell rang before she could reply. The Chairman was standing on a small stage at the front of the room, poised in front of a podium. "If you could all take your seats," he said, shooting their table a sharp look, "we can begin the ceremony."

"That moustache is not working for him," Sarah muttered.

"Nn-nnn," Miss Yelp agreed.

Tom Birch either didn't hear them or decided to pretend he didn't, stepping aside and holding out his microphone to Ned. "Mister Mayor, if you would . . ."

Ned's hands were trembling slightly, as they did every time he had to address a large group of people, but he managed to look calm as he took the microphone from his step-brother, even managing to smile at him. "Thank you, Chairman," he said, then turned to the room. "Here's to another year of nothing going wrong in this beautiful city of ours!" When that was met with raucous applause, he felt a little calmer. "Now, we are terribly sad that one of the councilmen is retiring after so many years of excellent service —"

"Excellent my butt," Sally grumbled, just loud enough for him to hear. He ignored her as well as he could and continued.

"— but he will be replaced by his son, who was elected only yesterday. If he would join his colleagues on stage, we can begin." He swore the new man in, knowing that he was just as likely to oppose and disdain him as the others were; to him they were all one giant green face, led by Tom. If only Erik hadn't been blackballed by the Greenies . . .

Still, he thought, looking the council up and down as they all gave the Whoville Pledge, then turning his gaze to the hall full of citizens, I love this job.

"It's a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Wodilt," Ned said, shaking the new councilman's hand. He was a little older than Ned, and had been one of Tom's football buddies back in high school.

Neil Wodlit glanced up at the Chairman, and when it was clear that he was supposed to say something back, he replied, "Yeah. It'll be fun, Mister Mayor." He coughed, and Ned could've sworn he heard "McLoser" in the man's hacking.

Excusing himself, Ned collapsed in the chair next to Sally with a groan. "I thought I'd left this behind in high school," he complained, resting his head in his hands.

Sally rubbed between his shoulder blades. "Some people never grow up," she said.

"HEYYYYYYY!" Sarah threw one arm around Sally's shoulder and the other around Ned's, falling to her knees between them and nearly knocking them both over. Her breath stank with the sharp tang of alcohol. "This party is awesome! Like . . . awesome. Seriously. Awesome."

"Speaking of not growing up," Sally said with a laugh.

"You're really not one to talk," Ned replied. "Where's Erik?"

"Right here." He was hovering over the three of them, amused. "Mrs. Redson," he said to Sarah, "how about we get you home to bed?"

Sarah shook her head, her dark purple curls slapping Sally and Ned in the face. "No no no no no no," she slurred. "We need to see Ned's giant ball." When they all just stared at her blankly, she reached over and took Sally's water, fishing out some ice cubes with her fingers and plopping them into her mouth. "You know," she said. "Ned has this giant ball made of meat. And we rode it once. Well . . . I did. Ned just sat there."

Ned's face flushed bright red, and Sally started snickering, both at her friend's words and her husband's face. "She doesn't mean —" the mayor began.

"I know." Erik looked down at his wife tenderly. "I'm sorry about her," he said. "She just hasn't gotten out in a while, and she kind of went overboard."

"I wanna touch Ned's giant ball!" Sarah whined, struggling to her feet — not very successfully, as she kept stepping on the edge of her dress and falling over. This time she was loud enough for people at the next table over to hear.

"Again, I am so sorry —" Erik said, but he trailed off as Sally and Ned exchanged looks, then burst out laughing. "Wait, you aren't drunk, too, are you?"

They both shook their heads. "That just sounds a little familiar," Ned explained. The year Sally and Ned had been married, she'd attended his first mayoral function and been so nervous that she drank five glasses of punch without realizing it was alcoholic. Besides being illegal, this had forced them to leave early when she staggered up to Tom Birch — who had been named Chairman that very night — and pronounced him "chair of the boobs." Then, on the way home, she had broken free of Ned and stumbled up to his meatball float, pressing her hands against it and shouting, "I'M TOUCHING NED'S BALLS!" at the top of her lungs.

It had made the next day at work extremely uncomfortable, to say the least.

Patrick, who had been dancing with Miss Yelp, came over to their table. "Hey Sarah," he said, and he and Erik helped her to her feet. "Having a good time?"

"I love this party!" she exclaimed. "I don't even care about my giant nose!"

"That's good." He turned to the others and added, "Come on. The ball's about to drop." When they started giggling (including Sarah, though she didn't quite understand what was funny), he and Miss Yelp stared at them in confusion.

"Nothing, Pat," Sally said, hooking one arm through his and the other through Ned's. "Just refusing to grow up."

When they got home, Sally quietly tiptoed up to her son's bedroom; as the only boy, he was allowed to have his own, but it was about the size of a broom closet. Jojo was sitting at his desk, a pile of tools and scrap metal sitting in front of him and a pair of thick goggles perched on his nose. He glanced up at her when she entered, his large brown eyes — so much like hers, but darker — inquisitive.

She didn't come in, but stood at the door. "Thank you," she told him, not bothering to elaborate. She didn't need to.

He couldn't quite hide a smile as he shrugged and, after a pause, held up his finger and thumb in the classic "okay" symbol.

"You think you'll give him less of a hard time from now on?"

His lips pursed as he pushed his goggles off his head, thinking. Finally he seesawed his hand in a so-so motion: maybe.

"Is that the best I'm going to get?"

One snap: Yes.

"I'll take it." She turned to go, but was stopped by something hitting her shoulder. She looked down and saw a ball of paper at her feet, then glanced up at Jojo. "You need a better way of getting my attention," she told him, putting her hands on her hips.

He shrugged apologetically, then held up a sheet of paper. On it was written, "Why is Dad like that?"

She sighed, shaking her head. "He just loves being mayor, hon. And he wants you to feel the same way." When Jojo deflated, his eyes fixed on the floor, she sat down on the edge of his desk. "It'll be okay," she said. "I know he's a bit difficult, but he adores you. More than you can possibly imagine."

He turned the paper over and wrote, "As long as I'm mayor."

She kissed the top of his head. "He'd love you just as much if you weren't. But I promise I'll try to talk to him if you will, okay?"

Jojo sighed, then nodded. "No promises," he wrote.

"I'm not asking for any. Goodnight, sweetheart." He snapped once and returned to his invention, his tongue poking out between his lips as he worked.

When she got back to her bedroom, Ned was sprawled across the bed, fully dressed and snoring. She smiled and gently pushed him over to his side, kneeling down at the foot of the bed and pulling his shoes off.

They never really grew up, did they?

A/N: That flashback to Sally's inebriation was a reference to this beautiful work: *jabberwockychamber17*.deviantart.*com/art/lol-balls-again-261796096 Just remove the asterisks to see a truly hilarious picture!